ESO Releases 2024 ESO Fire Service Index to Explore Key Trends and Measures Affecting Fire Departments Across the Country

Index looks at outdoor and structure fires by type, apparatus response time, decontamination practices

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ESO, the leading data and software company serving emergency medical services (EMS), fire departments, hospitals, state and federal agencies, today announced the findings of its 2024 Fire Service Index. The Index looks at key trends across fire departments nationwide, including first apparatus response times, outdoor and structure fires by type, fire decontamination practices and more. Data for the Index is from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2023 and comes from the ESO Data Collaborative.

“The ESO Fire Service Index allows us to snapshot what is occurring in the U.S. Fire service and gives agencies an opportunity to compare that information to their own communities,” said Bill Gardner, Senior Director of Fire Products at ESO. "This year, we introduced the outdoor fire measure, which revealed that the threat of wildland and outdoor fires is escalating. To give an example, unauthorized burning made up 31% of these cases which underscores the urgent need for tailored risk reduction programs and enhanced prevention strategies in the face of expanding urban development and environmental challenges.”

Key Findings Include:

• There were nearly 82,500 outdoor fire incidents reported, with a noticeable peak during the warmer months. More than 25,000 of those incidents were from unauthorized burning.
• Natural vegetation fires constituted the second most common type of fire call. With changing weather patterns and increased wildfire frequency, fire departments across the board are being impacted by wildfires, either directly or indirectly through providing aid.
• Within fire calls, the most common incident types include: 1) Structure fire (36%), 2) Outside rubbish fire (21%) and 3) Natural vegetation fire (21%). Patterns in vegetation fires may be due to changing wildland patterns or reduced wildland management, which are causing longer, more frequent, and larger wildland fires.
• Decontamination procedures were noted in 76% of fire incidents, showing a decrease of 6% compared to last year's data and a 10% decrease compared to 2022. Documenting decontamination efforts is crucial to ensure firefighters' health and safety, especially in preventing cancer.

The full Index can be downloaded here.

About the ESO Fire Service Index

The dataset for the 2024 ESO Fire Service Index report is real-world data, compiled and aggregated from 6,522,791 incidents that occurred between January 1 – December 31, 2023 across the United States.

About ESO

ESO (ESO Solutions, Inc.) is dedicated to improving community health and safety through the power of data. Since its founding in 2004, the company continues to pioneer innovative, user-friendly software to meet the changing needs of today’s EMS agencies, fire departments, hospitals, state and federal offices. ESO currently serves thousands of customers throughout North America with a broad software portfolio, including the industry-leading ESO Electronic Health Record (EHR), the next generation ePCR; ESO Health Data Exchange (HDE), the first-of-its-kind healthcare interoperability platform; ESO Fire RMS, the modern fire Record Management System; ESO Patient Registry (trauma, burn and stroke registry software); and ESO State Repository. ESO is headquartered in Austin, Texas. For more information, visit www.eso.com.